Hidden Japan: An Astonishing World of Thatched Villages, Ancient Shrines and Primeval Forests
256
Hidden Japan: An Astonishing World of Thatched Villages, Ancient Shrines and Primeval Forests
256Paperback
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Overview
In Alex Kerr's critically acclaimed Lost Japan and Dogs and Demons, he documented the decline of the traditional landscapes of Japan, his adopted home of many years. Here, in Hidden Japan he makes a journey of rediscovery to find the wonders that still remain.
Originally published in Japanese as a call to preserve disappearing facets of Japan's rich and ancient culture, Hidden Japan records Kerr's travels to various remote and lesser-known places where pockets of traditional culture can still be found. Some are faraway—like Aogashima Island, 200 miles south of Tokyo—while others are easy to reach, such as Mii-dera temple just east of Kyoto. The ten engaging essays in this book describe surprising remnants of Japan's fragile physical and cultural environment, including:
- Avant-garde Butoh dancing in the remote village of Tashiro in Akita Prefecture
- How shochu liquor is distilled from tropical ferns on the Pacific island of Aogashima
- An austere but delicious kaiseki meal in rural Tottori Prefecture composed of local herbs and meats
- Anecdotes relating to Kerr's childhood growing up in Japan and his passion for restoring old houses
- The damage caused by governmental infrastructure and reforestation policies, as well as by tourism
- Plus many other topics!
Kerr's sharp eye for detail and exquisite descriptions of Japanese, arts, architecture and foods will inspire readers who already appreciate his unique look at the "reality" of Japan beyond the romance. His personal involvement and obvious love for his subjects encourage us all to think more carefully about our own traditions and environment, and to challenge ourselves to search for better solutions to preserve what is of value all around us.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9784805317518 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tuttle Publishing |
| Publication date: | 09/05/2023 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 239,898 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Introduction
"Japan's Hidden Places"
This book describes visits I made from 2017 to 2019 to ten "hidden places" in Japan. These included not only remote hamlets in Akita and Tottori prefectures, but some easily accessible places that have nevertheless been overlooked and forgotten. I was seeking the Japan I have loved since I was a child.
In my book Dogs and Demons (2001) I predicted that as Japan's countryside continued to be ravaged by poorly planned public works and littered with concrete and garish signage, this would have a detrimental effect on foreign travelers, who would be repelled by the ugliness they saw. I was completely wrong. Foreign visitors have mostly overlooked it all. It's because visitors to Japan come in search of beauty, and naturally enough focus on the beautiful. And they have no way of knowing how drastic the changes have been.
That's not the case with the Japanese. There are many who feel the same sorrow at what has overtaken their country as I do. They're seeking the beautiful Japan which is increasingly hard to find, but which they know must still be there. This book was written for them and was originally published in Japanese in December 2020 under the title Nippon junrei [Japan pilgrimage]. After it came out, a number of foreign friends asked me if it could be translated into English. This book is that translation, but while I aimed to stay close to the original, I ended up making additions here and there. Sometimes it was to clarify the meaning for people who don't live in Japan, and other times because the work of translation sparked new thoughts. A few of these changes are significant expansions on the Japanese book—and now I wish I could go back and rewrite it to include them.
Even with these revisions, my way of approaching things in this book is not how I would normally have written in English, and at times the rhyme and rhythm of things may sound a bit odd to foreign readers. More unsettling than this, however, will likely be the sense of the fragility of the landscapes I describe.
This is not a full description of the places I visited. That's the role of guidebooks. Instead, I focus on one or two particular points that draw my interest—the line of a temple roof, the shape of a rice paddy or a mountainside covered with primeval trees. It's such details that take us to a deeper place.
Even many Japanese would no longer be aware, for example, that the shape of rice paddies has changed in recent decades. Once you know that, you start to look at rice paddies differently. This book is an exploration of not only forgotten places, but forgotten details.
A few years ago, I read an account by a foreign writer in which he walked the Kumano Pilgrimage, a series of ancient trails through the forests of the Kii Peninsula, imagining how this scenery must have pleased the great print artist Hiroshige. No matter that Hiroshige never came near the site of this pilgrimage. More critically, the industrial cedar plantations that now cover the Kumano route look nothing like the forests of the Edo period.
Suppose we wanted to ask ourselves what really is wonderful about the Kumano Pilgrimage. If the romance does not lie in Hiroshige or in cedar plantations, then where and what is it?
In Hidden Japan, I try to return to where the romance is really to be found. Secluded hamlets like something out of an old ink painting do still exist, as do temples and shrines in remote areas that survived the wars that wiped out old Kyoto and Edo and the tourist frenzy of recent years. Haunted woods old enough to have enchanted Hiroshige and Basho still stand. These places have their own real stories to tell, more magical than we could have dreamed.
—Introduction to Hidden Japan by Alex Kerr, 2023, pgs 5-6.